I am not The OOP, OOP is u/Fearless_Neat_6654

AITA for refusing to be my friend’s alibi so he can cheat on his GF?  FINAL UPDATE

Originally posted to r/AITAH

Thanks to u/queenlegolas for suggesting this BoRU

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TRIGGER WARNING: infidelity, verbal abuse, emotional manipulation, bullying, mention of depression

Original Post  Nov 28, 2023

Throwaway

I (M21) have known my friend Matt (M21) since we started college. We're in the same program and have been roommates since day 1. Overall, I'd say Matt is a great guy; however, he has a terrible tendency to cheat.

Throughout college, I think Matt had 5-7 different girlfriends, and each of those relationships ended because he would cheat. Back in January, he started dating his current girlfriend (Jen F21) and has been with her far longer than any of the previous relationships. From my interactions with Jen, I know she's a wonderful person. She's very polite, beautiful, and clearly devoted to Matt.

For the past few weeks, Matt has also developed a close relationship with his anatomy lab partner (Cindy F21). It's become pretty clear to me and my other housemates (Kyle M21, Robert M22, Omar M20) that there is some romantic relationship between them. We’ve even all met Cindy as she came by our house a few times.

Long story short, Matt has told me and the other guys that things between him and Cindy are moving fairly quickly and that Jen is completely in the dark about this. He told us that, for the foreseeable future, he'll be spending a few nights hanging out at Cindy's place.

Here's the issue: Jen and her roommates don't live that far from us (about a 7-minute walk). So there's a good chance she'll come by looking for him, according to Matt. Therefore, he wants us all to make excuses for his absences and potentially reassure Jen that he isn't up to anything bad.

Kyle and Robert are fully on board with this, as they consider it the "bro code." Omar is fully against this, and while he has not said he'd tell Jen, he has refused to lie for Matt and has been urging him to end things with Cindy.

I would say I'm more neutral. I don't think what Matt's doing is appropriate, but I don't think it's my place to tell Matt how to manage his relationships. I told him that while I wouldn't seek Jen out and tell her what's going on, I wouldn't lie to her either about where he is and instead say “I don't know”.

We all argued about this for a while, and the general gist of things is that Kyle, Robert, and Matt all think I'm being a bit of an ass for not being more cooperative.

Aside from this, I don't think there is really much I can do. Moving to somewhere else is both economically and logistically unfeasible so I think trying to avoid stirring the pot is my best bet

AITA?

Update  Nov 30, 2023

I’ll start this update by saying Jen found out last night.

Like Matt predicted, she came over to our house Tuesday evening. I saw her pretty quickly since I was also coming back from buying some food. She asked me if I knew where Matt was, and I said I didn’t know (because I genuinely didn’t know at the time). She mentioned how he wasn’t responding to her texts and that she was worried about him, and I felt pretty bad hearing that.

Kyle who were inside, came out at this point and said that Matt was in his anatomy lab and then reassured her that he’d contact her once he was finished. She didn’t seem entirely satisfied with that answer but thanked us anyway and left. Once she was gone, Kyle told me that Matt was actually on a date with Cindy.

Since Matt sometimes brings Cindy over, he’ll text the house group chat before they come over to ensure that Jen isn’t around. He did this on Tuesday night, and Kyle did alert him that Jen had stopped by looking for him, so he stayed over with Cindy on Tuesday night.

Wednesday evening, only Omar and I are home. Kyle was with his own GF, and Robert had an exam. Around 7 pm, we got a text on the group chat from Matt saying he plans on bringing Cindy over around 8:30, and he asked if Jen came by.

I told him that I hadn’t seen her, and things went on as usual. I’ll add that Omar has refused to respond to these specific text messages from Matt, so there was an expectation on me to clarify if Jen was here or not.

A little after 8 pm, Jen comes by with one of her friends (Carlie F21). They asked us where Matt was since Jen hadn’t been seeing him a lot lately. Before I could even say anything, Omar told them to come back after 8:30, and Matt should be home. They left, and I did argue with Omar about his decision to tell them to come back since it was inevitably going to cause drama, but he didn’t care.

I did text Matt and told him about Jen potentially returning, but since he was driving, he didn’t read the message. At this stage, I gave up trying to contact Matt and went up to my room.

A little after 8:30, Matt walked in with Cindy, and not that long afterward, Jen and Carlie returned (Omar let them in). Long story short, there was a lot of Jen yelling and Matt lying and apologizing. I didn’t bother coming down since I could hear it all from my room. After about 10 min of this, Jen and Carlie left.

Matt sent Cindy home after this and was pretty pissed at what happened. I reminded him that I sent text messages (which he now saw), and Omar played dumb, acting like he didn’t see Matt’s message about him asking if Jen was home but confirmed to him that he told Jen to come back after the first time she came because “He didn’t think Matt was dumb enough to go out with Cindy two nights back to back.” Robert and Kyle came home after this point and I filled them in with what happened.

There was definitely some tension in the house this morning as Matt thinks this all could have been avoided had Omar been more helpful. He also partially blames Cindy for wanting to come over so often. Overall, Matt doesn’t really seem to care that Jen found out and broke things off with him. He said that he’ll try apologizing one more time (as he does prefer Jen to Cindy) and if she doesn’t accept, he’ll leave things as they are.

As for Cindy, Matt has already told Kyle, Robert, and me this morning that he plans on ending things with her after the December exam season. He says that he wants to be single again by New Year’s so he can have a fresh start. Kyle and Robert think this is pretty hilarious considering how much trouble he got into to be with her.

Things have ended more smoothly then I thought and I have made it abundantly to Matt to keep me out of his relationship woes.

I have also asked Carlie how Jen was holding up this morning as we share a class together. As expected Jen was very upset about the entire ordeal and she and her friends consider everyone at our house aside from Omar to be complicit and awful.

Quick Update - Kyle texted the group chat, his GF knows and she isn't happy.

Update 2  Dec 1, 2023

2nd UPDATE - AITA for refusing to be my friend's alibi so he can cheat on his GF?

I've been receiving a lot of DMs from people wondering how things turned out after the big reveal, so here's a quick recap:

1. Jen did not accept Matt's apology. She has indicated that she, in fact, never wants to see him again.

2. Matt is still with Cindy, and he still plans on breaking up with her after exam season. According to him, Cindy is starting to feel pretty secure now that Matt is no longer with Jen and has expressed her desire to form a serious relationship with him. While he does feel a bit guilty, he thinks it's best for both of them that he ends things with her before New Year’s.

3. Despite “feeling guilty” Matt has attempted to reactivate his Tinder account, but Kyle made him take it down. Kyle thinks it's too soon for Matt to do this since someone we know is bound to see him there, and according to Kyle, Matt needs to play up the angle that he's heartbroken about falling out with Jen.

4. Kyle has smoothed things over with his girlfriend by claiming he had no idea Matt was cheating. Robert backed him up on this and expressed that "nobody aside from Matt knew."

5. While I did plan on telling Carlie the truth about what was going on, considering how quickly Matt, Kyle, and Robert have been moving I opted against this. Instead, I've told Carlie that I also did not know about Matt's cheating. Yes, it's a lie, but since I was against Matt cheating, I don't think it's fair for me to go down with the ship, considering that both Kyle and Robert are getting off relatively scot-free. Apparently, I was convincing enough as Carlie told me that while she herself doesn't think I'm so bad, Jen will need time to process what went down, so it's best to give her space. Again, I get it isn’t the most appropriate measure, but I really don’t think I deserve to be in the splash zone.

6. Omar has expressed his strong disappointment in all of us but at this stage his voice has become ambient noise according to Kyle.

Since I’m fortunately visiting my parents this weekend, I get to be away from the drama and hopefully any potential fallout.

Also, since its relatively earlier we'll have to wait and see if anything else happens. But I hope (pray) the worst is over.

Update 3  Dec 14, 2023

3rd Update

For those wondering why I haven't posted another update, I was busy with exams. However, things have largely calmed down.

Omar is doing alright. We're not ostracizing him or anything. All he has is bad exam anxiety (despite consistently getting good marks). We went out to celebrate his birthday a few nights ago, and this did help us all de-stress.

According to Carlie, Jen is still very upset about what happened with Matt; however, fortunately, she's less depressed about it now and feels anger towards Matt more than anything else according to Carlie.

As for Matt himself, he still claims to be on course to dump Cindy sometime in the near future, as he has remained adamant about being single by the new year. Matt and Kyle claim that it is fair considering the role that Cindy played in all of this, but I’m not so sure. Either way, I’ll be staying out of whatever Matt has planned.

Kyle has pretty successfully smoothed things over with his own GF. For a bit, it did look like she wanted to take a break from him since she did hear about him telling Jen that Matt was in his lab instead of with Cindy. She was suspicious, but he did reiterate to her that he had no idea Matt was cheating. Robert helped him with this, and they have successfully put the entire thing on Matt. Matt is OK with this as he does now admit “some responsibility” but he only made this admission after Omar essentially had to spell it out for him.

Aside from this, not much is happening since everyone is mainly focused on their exams.

Update 4 Dec 22, 2023

So, there have been a few developments since my last post. Before you ask, no, I haven't told Kyle's girlfriend anything for obvious reasons. Firstly, I don't want to ruin my housing situation. Second, it'd be my word against Kyle's, Matt's, and Robert's, so she probably wouldn't believe what I have to say. Also, I've started seeing a new girl myself, and things are going smoothly. Snitching on Kyle would probably ruin that as well.

I asked Omar privately if he was going to blow the whistle on Kyle, but he didn't give me a particularly straightforward answer. He's hard to read, so I don't know what he'll do. Kyle has begged him not to say anything, so we'll see how that holds. I'm guessing Omar has probably already told the girl he likes about the entire situation. They act like a married couple despite not really dating, so if he knows, she probably knows as well, which does put Kyle at some risk of being found out, but this is only speculation and not my problem.

Matt's plan to dump Cindy and be single by the new year has completely fallen apart. As you may recall, Cindy is Matt's lab partner, and the anatomy class they're taking is a full-year course. As Omar so smugly pointed out, Matt wants the anatomy prof to write him a ref letter eventually (since he has done prior research with this prof and is doing well in his class), and if he were to have a conflict with his lab partner, that might spoil the letter.

Omar has been throwing this constantly in Matt's face by saying things like how Matt needs to "pretend to love Cindy even though he isn't capable of love" and how he "can't be a hoe anymore because it will affect his academics." He says all this jokingly, but it is hilarious considering how worked up Matt gets.

Jen and Carlie are doing alright; I saw them before leaving campus the other day, and we spoke briefly. I've heard that Jen is starting to reconnect with her ex (the guy before Matt). Before you ask, she didn’t cheat on this guy with Matt. She got with Matt a few months after she and the guy ended things. Hopefully, she finds happiness there.

Since our winter break has started, we'll all be headed our separate ways for most of the break. I do plan on hanging out with the guys a few times, though for now, as much as I love tea, I need a break from their drama.

Update 5  Feb 2, 2024

Unsurprisingly, Matt (M22) has cheated again on his newest "gf" Cindy (F21). I use the term gf loosely because realistically Matt only stayed with Cindy because he needed a recommendation letter from a certain prof and didn't want issues in the class he shared with her. Cindy was essentially a placeholder and since Matt no longer needs that letter (lucky him), he's more or less done with her. He went on quite a tirade about how annoying and clingy she is and again mentioned how he still prefers his previous gf, Jen (F21), to her.

Matt revealed this information, during a completely unrelated conversation, to me (M21) and one of my other roommates, Omar (M21) last night. The two of us had no idea this was going on as Matt has been more secretive about whom he tells his relationship info since the last time he cheated. Our other roommate Kyle (M21) told us that he has known about Matt cheating on Cindy for almost 2 weeks now (he and Matt are besties). I'm not sure if our other roommate Robert, who wasn't here last night when were having this chat, knows about Matt cheating yet again. I didn't bother asking Matt or Kyle if he knew.

Of course, Cindy has no clue that Matt's been unfaithful nor does Kyle's own gf, Olivia (F21), know that Kyle's been essentially helping Matt cheat on Cindy. I kinda knew Olivia wouldn't know for obvious reasons, but I didn't want Kyle to confirm this with me. The only reason I got this confirmation was because Omar stupidly asked Kyle "Does Olivia know?" Realistically, Omar knew damn well that Olivia wouldn't know (she didn't know last time Kyle covered for Matt) but I guess he wanted to burden us with this information for whatever reason.

Omar then asked Matt if he was going to break up with Cindy and Matt only responded by saying "Eventually, yes". I asked Matt what he meant by this and he clarified that he wanted to be done with Cindy by reading week (about 2 weeks away).

For those wondering, I'm still here for 3 more months until my lease is up

Update 6 - Regarding the DMs Feb 13, 2024

I'm only writing because I've been getting far too many DMs and I just want to address a few things here. Firstly, please stop DMing me.

I've got over 50 in the past few days and more or less they're all the same nonsense.

Second, nobody should expect me to march over to Jen and Carlie's house and tell them and all their other roommates that I knew Matt was cheating on Jen for weeks before he got found out. I have a pretty good reputation and don't want to needlessly damage that. You're free to call it cowardice but I think it's pretty pointless to go talk to Jen since she has largely moved on. I truly hope she's in a better place. Carlie and I still have a few classes together this semester and she generally has a very good opinion of me. We share notes pretty often and I know that telling her would make her disappointed.

Third, nobody in our house has any intentions of telling Cindy that Matt is actively cheating on her. We are all pretty busy dealing with exams, assignments, and interview prep to worry about that. I however told Matt firmly that he needed to stop playing games and at least try and hold down a serious relationship after the Cindy saga ends. He said he would heed my advice, but I don't really believe him.

Fourth, Kyle's gf Olivia doesn't know about how he's helping Matt cheat on Cindy. Omar did tell him that he should probably come clean about that before it bites him in the ass later. Robert on the other hand told Kyle that telling Olivia is "madness" since she may react as if Kyle was the one cheating. Obviously, Matt also doesn't want Kyle to tell Olivia anything.

Lastly, I don't expect Omar to run around spilling tea like most people think. He's got enough on his plate between schoolwork, interviews and prepping for ramadan. However, I will admit there is a small chance the girl he likes (Sara F21) knows about our situation and may tell Olivia. Kyle does worry about that.

NEW UPDATE

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Probably Last Update  March 14, 2024

The 2nd term at uni is finally starting to wrap up now, I had a few stressful midterms but for the most part, things seem to be calming down a bit. I only have about 1.5 months left on my lease and then I'll be able to leave all my roommate drama in the past as this is our last year of undergrad.

Just a few days ago, Matt told me and the other guys that he had finally dumped Cindy. It came a bit late as I remember him saying something about being done with her by reading week (which ended on Feb/25). He admitted that he kept her along partially for his lab class. Now only a few more lab sessions remain in the term and most of them are independent work according to Matt. Supposedly, Cindy is distraught, though since she knew about Matt's antics beforehand, I hope she had the foresight to mentally prepare for this outcome. At least she doesn't know she was cheated on.

Since dumping Cindy, Matt has started seeing a new girl. So far he claims to like her, but since he's likely going to move this summer (to attend med school), the relationship already has a predetermined expiry date. Omar asked him if the girl knew what she was signing up for and Matt gave a lame answer about not knowing the future and how she might prefer this sort of arrangement. Omar was a bit annoyed by this and told Matt that he was behaving like an asshole.

I agreed with Omar and told Matt that he was probably already lining up potential affair partners. He denied this and said that if things went well enough, he'd be open to trying a long-distance relationship (assuming he moves out of province). All of us called BS on this, even Kyle and Robert.

Speaking of Kyle, he has still not told Olivia about how he's been helping Matt cheat. Olivia is pretty friendly with Omar's so-called future wife, Sara so maybe she tells Olivia, idk. Kyle is worried about this outcome and asked Omar to help with damage control if this does happen. Omar has refused and claims he can't lie since he's fasting these days. He thinks that Kyle should just tell her so that way she'll maybe appreciate the transparency. Robert warned Kyle against this and said that it would probably just create drama and stress for him.

I've been telling my own gf some of what's been going on, and she has expressed to me several times that she doesn't like Matt (or Kyle lol). Between all the papers she writes for her courses and prepping for the LSAT she'll be writing in the late summer, she's got enough to worry about. But she did tell me that she'd like me to be firmer with Matt so I've been calling out his problematic behaviour more often.

The last thing I'll add is that Jen is thankfully in a better place now. Carlie told me that Jen started talking with a new guy a few weeks ago, so hopefully, that works out well for her. Funnily enough, Matt knows this as well and seems bothered by it but there isn't much he can do about it aside from coping I guess.

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP